


It's What Friends Do

by Ukthxbye



Series: AUs of The Empty Hearse [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Canon Divergence - The Empty Hearse, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Baggage, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, F/M, Hugs, POV Sherlock Holmes, Prompt Fic, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 02:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17879378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ukthxbye/pseuds/Ukthxbye
Summary: Molly said yes to dinner after an odd day of crime solving with a freshly returned Sherlock Holmes. But he finds them both lingering at 221b after dinner and coffee, neither able to end the day.





	It's What Friends Do

It was a classic case of misunderstanding. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, paused in a goodbye that stumbled toward its end. Molly shrugged her satchel strap higher, eyeing the door.

 

"Dinner was lovely. And the coffee too." She glanced to the floor, running a fidgeting finger across the edges of her nails and to the ring on her left hand.

 

He watched her lips tighten, the top one nearly disappearing. He asked, and she relented. Dinner brought back an ease that years might have taken away.  She should be on the tube, him upstairs lost in his mind palace, bow on violin. But both their feet rooted, avoiding the words.

 

"Molly—"

 

"Look, um…" she interrupted with a murmur, closing her eyes tight, her teeth scraping the corner of her mouth.  "I didn't say yes just because... I don't—"  


He stiffened, straightening his spine, stopping her words.  "I only wanted to thank you for today... for everything."

 

It's not the first time he lied to her or himself today.

 

Her deep brown eyes slowly traveled up to hold his cool stare. Every second that passed revealing questions below the surface and his own pulse confounded him.  She never asked. She never pressed, and the misunderstanding was his own. It cannot be just dinner with them. No matter what sat on her finger.

 

He swallowed the dry realization, and it burned its way to the pit of his stomach. _Why_ is the only word floating in his peripheral.

 

His eyes found the floor the best focus now.

 

“I’m sorry,” stumbled off his lips, still new words to him and unused except with her. As always she is the exception.

 

She shook her head, opening her mouth and closing it without a word. But some mumbled to the surface, and he glanced up to read her face.

 

“You have said nothing, surprisingly enough, that you need to apologize for,” she snickered.

 

He stiffened up again, drawing his coat across him as he shoved his hand into the pockets, nodding, “Yes... I guess you are right.”

 

Her head cocked to the side in silent contemplation for a breath, but with a clear voice she asked "Then why did you apologize?"

 

Those deep brown pools wide open sought his eyes again, and they both gulped.

 

“For asking you.”

 

She drew her lip up into her teeth, "... to dinner? But I asked to—"

 

"To lie for me," he blurted.

 

She frowned, and he tracked every line on her face creasing. "I didn’t really see it like…" her mouth sat open but the words stopped as if she suddenly didn't trust them. He assumed so because it would match his own understanding.

 

He sighed, “It was.”

 

“It’s been two years... it’s ok” she sniffed and looked back down at her hands. And that ring, he glanced at it as well.

 

"Perhaps it’s not," he mumbled.

 

A throaty laugh escaped as she looked up and away to the door then back to him with a sigh. “I’m lost. What are you—”

 

"It was wrong of me to ask so much." He swallowed hard waiting for her reaction once more. A thousand more words are rolling around his mind but none of them uncomplicated. He pushed them away.

 

She surprised him with a soft smile and he sensed his pulse jump once more at it.

 

"You really got to learn that's what friendship is." She shook her head sadly.

 

“Asking wrong things of each other?” he smirked.

 

She nodded with a frown, but giggled nervously, “Odd way of putting it but maybe... yes”

 

He pulled his bottom lip in tight. "I'm still sorry." Deeper reasons why he kept repeating the apology lost on him. He only knew he sought a different reaction.

 

"I know you are... somehow I always do. Even if it appears otherwise," she shrugged.

 

"Why do you believe in me, Molly Hooper?" he asked in an earnest low voice.

 

"Because... I'm… I"  she stammered.

 

In a breath, she stepped into him, wrapping arms around him, and gripping onto his back tight as she buried her face in his chest. The shock stopped his breath, and he allowed it to return slowly once aware.

 

She laid her head to the side, and he closed eyes and focused hoping to slow the beating of his heart too fast against her ear. His arms stayed at his side in fear. But she did not relent and a timid, unsure hand found the back of her skull.

 

"Hugs appear to have increased in popularity with friends since I returned," he sighed when control return to his senses.

 

"Shut up... it's what friends do," she murmured her jaw pressed to his chest, and he read the words as much as he heard her. Her face stayed hidden on purpose. He sensed it as she squeezed him all the tighter as if it were the last hug instead of the first. Perchance it can be both, he mused.

 

Like their eyes when they met and held their ground, like their breath when the other entered the room unannounced, they elongated the moments to an uncomfortable linger. This embrace held now no less precariousness.

 

But compulsion drowned his logic and control. He leaned his head down, and his lips landed soft on the top of her head. They rested there as he drank in the scent of her hair, stronger than any enduring ghost of it he sniffed on her pillow. A pillow he should not know. His hand slid down to her shoulders and her tremble worried him suddenly. But then unnatural vibration pulsated between them and she pulled back as quick as she grabbed ahold of him.

 

Panic washed over her face as she fumbled for the mobile in her pocket. The buzz stopped and he couldn't see if she ended the call or if it ended before she could answer. She stared at the screen, breathing in small heaves. He stood still noticing the air cool around him in the absence of her embrace. She looked at him, and the moment lost its effect to something else he sensed.

 

 _For the better,_ he thought.

 

"I'm sorry, " she gulped, her eyes jumping back and forth between him and the mobile as she typed furiously. "It was lovely, I just—"

 

"Yes, please. I do need to get back to work," he grinned widely as he shoved his hands in pockets again. False in every way, but she nodded, disorientated in a fervent thought as she turned to the door and did not perceive it through her preoccupation. At least he hoped so.

 

"Thank you, for dinner... and all. I'll... I'll see you later, at work?" she asked with a weak smile, her grip on her mobile making her knuckles go white.

 

He softened his smile, "Of course. Goodnight, Molly."

 

With that she grabbed the handle, pulled it and rushed out, barely closing the door behind her. He lingered for a moment, letting the air settle before closing it fully and ascending the stairs with a new weariness he shook off before he landed at the top.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was the first sentence in a writing workshop with author Sam Stone. I read it out loud(the first half I did there) and she said I did textbook "show not tell" and I have a poetic like rhythm to my words. I am gonna just die happy with those compliments.  
> Thanks to Mouse9 for beta work.


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